Garage-sale sociology

Garage sales are part business venture and part social experiment. That is my conclusion after my experience last weekend. Oh, and a whole lot of hard work. But that part isn't as interesting.

The sale is a business venture in that, as I explained to Jellybean, it's like setting up a store that is open for two days. You choose a location (for some, as simple as, garage or yard?), sort and price your merchandise, establish your accounting system and advertise your business. Aside from the location, the rest of those steps are pretty critical in making it successful. But the business end isn't the most interesting component.

To me, the social experiment is the diamond in the rough. Everyone knows that you see interesting people at garage sales. And I'm a sucker for good people-watching, so observing our "customers" was an added benefit for me. I feel like I have a whole new understanding of the people who live in my area -- and the whole country, for that matter.

Some of the people were kind of funny: the wheeler-dealers who will cut the price on anything just because they can, the lonely people who stay at the sale for 45 minutes mostly to have someone to talk to the whole time, the quirky people in altered states who try to stick the price tags on you when they make their purchase, you get the idea. It was great to be doing the sale with my friend, because we could exchange information about those people after they left, like what they bought and the reason we thought they bought what they bought.

Others of our customers seemed all right until you looked below the surface. There were many entire families shopping together -- dad, mom and all the kids -- and it was clear that they were there because garage sales are the source of their clothing and shoes and other necessities. I doubt many families with young kids would choose garage sales as their top weekend morning activity (some would, I'm sure, but I could tell that wasn't the case for many folks we saw). I wanted to secretly give them whatever they needed instead of making them pay.

There was another customer shopping with her little daughter whom I will probably never forget. I can't bring myself to go into detail here, but I will always question whether I should have intervened in an ugly situation. The little girl got a Dora doll, and let's just say I hope that doll will give her some sense of love and security.

As a marketing person, I can't help be most interested in why people bought what they bought, i.e., where the business venture and social experiment intersected. We worked very hard at presentation and making it easy to get to everything we had -- we had so much stuff, we were constantly shifting items around as other things were sold. We had "departments" like clothing, housewares, electronics, etc., so it was easy to find specific things.

The first things we sold? Some drapery panels, a dated duvet cover and several pairs of out-of-style ladies' shoes, including my worn-out Merrells. We had tons of baby gadgets, toys and clothes, yet that is what went first. Eventually, of course, many of those sold as well.
Children's books, old purses and baby hats all surprised us with their popularity. We restocked those for the second day because they had flown off the shelves. Same with used (once) gift bags, which we sold 2 for $1. People loved that.

The things that didn't sell? We thought these were guaranteed to go, and yet we still have them: a computer chair, a baby bouncy seat, Baby Bjorn, portable radio and DVD movies. Our stuff was cheap, so lack of demand must be the culprit.

As interesting as all these things were to Spin Mama the business person, Spin Mama the people-watcher and Spin Mama the marketer, I think it will be a while before I do another garage sale. At the very least, it will be several years (thankfully) before I can accumulate enough stuff to sell. And, even though I have an organized basement, clutter-free closets and fewer material things (ahh!) to add to my meager profits, I still put more effort into this single project than I have into anything in a long time. It's nice to have my life back this week.